The "Celeb is Dead, Quote My Expert" Pitch: TWO THUMBS DOWN

It's obvious that when an institution of opinion the likes of Roger Ebert passes away...due to cancer no less...it sucks.

When you find out the aforementioned movie critic passed away via email, it sucks even more. It sucks to find out someone died via email at all, right?

But when that email is a pitch shoving "a relevant expert" down your throat, it's a whole new universe of sucking. It's a dimension of sucking so far beyond the "sucks universe" that it takes light from sucks a year to reach it.age. It's a state of sucking so far beyond sucking it takes the light from sucking one year to reach this new level of bad pitching.

You get the idea.

Yet, less than 24 hours after Roger Ebert went to the big movie theatre in the sky, someone who shall remain nameless, sent out the following pitch en mass. This pitch was sent to me separately by Shannan amd Traci - two different PR professionals.

Speed Kills
Since it set a new land speed record in bad pitching, we offer it to you as we head into the weekend. Our edits noted in BOLD and ALL CAPS.
----SUBJECT: Nostalgia Expert Available to Honor & Speak About Roger Ebert

Hi FIRSTNAME,
I hope you’re doing very well. With the sad news that legendary film critic Roger Ebert has passed, I wanted to let you know that nostalgia expert NAME, Founder of the THING, LINK/NAME, is available to speak about Mr. Ebert’s incredible career and impact on film and culture.
Please let me know if you’d like to speak with NAME. I can make him available at your earliest convenience.
----

Early Bird & The Worm? The Early Bird May Get the Worm. But Stupid is as Stupid Does. We've profiled the "dead" pitch so many times, it's not even funny. So I won't even put the seemingly obvious moral of this story. But I will say that speed can kill...without strategy. And in this case, common sense.

Culture-Jacking
The above idea is indirectly linked to Oreo's Super Bowl, Lights Out, Real-Time Content, "OMG this is so cool I can't stand it!" buzz we've seen lately. You don't hear anyone talking about Oreo or Kraft Mayonnaise trying to replicate Oreo's real time content win during the Grammys. That's because there wasn't any relevance to their efforts at the Grammy awards. They were simply trying to hijack popular culture with their brands. It sucked and it showed. Or didn't show in this case.

Mayonnaise is samich lube. Do you see any connection between this condiment and the Grammys? Neither do I. Real-time content following Roger Ebert's death helps reinforce this lesson - albeit indirectly.